TO:
Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council
THROUGH:
Talyn Mirzakhanian, City Manager
FROM:
Erick Lee, Public Works Director
Katherine Doherty, City Engineer
Gilbert Gamboa, Principal Civil Engineer
Gilbert Ramos, Associate Engineer
SUBJECT:Title
Consideration of the 2024 Pavement Management Program Update Final Report (Public Works Director Lee).
RECEIVE AND FILE
Body
_________________________________________________________
RECOMMENDATION:
Staff recommends that City Council receive and file the final report for the 2024 Pavement Management Program update.
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
There are no fiscal implications with receiving and filing this report. Projects identified in the report for street rehabilitation to maintain or improve the overall condition of the streets, walk streets, and alleys in the City of Manhattan Beach will be incorporated into future Capital Improvement Program budgets.
BACKGROUND:
The City is responsible for repairing and maintaining approximately 106 centerline miles of streets, of which 15.6 miles are arterials and collectors and 90.6 miles are residential roadways. Street pavement is considered the City’s most valuable asset, with a replacement value of approximately $206 million. This is calculated by combining each street section’s projected reconstruction cost, excluding the value of other non-pavement street components such as curb and gutters, sidewalks, drainage features, etc. Because of this high value, combined with the need to address continuous pavement wear and degradation, it is imperative to perform corrective and preventative maintenance via a strategic multi-year, multi-phase plan. This plan is implemented through individual construction projects utilizing a “toolbox” of paving methods. Such treatments generally include full-depth removal and replacement, cold milling with asphalt concrete overlays, portland cement concrete patching and reconstruction, and sealing (crack, slurry, cape, and micro-surfacing). Seals are typically preventive maintenance techniques, as they do not add structural capacity to the existing pavement.
To ensure compliance with funding and accounting mandates and enhance roadway maintenance efficiency, the City conducts street condition surveys every three years and compiles a report to prioritize upcoming rehabilitation projects. The City relies on the assistance of a specialized engineering consultant to perform this work.
A Pavement Management Program (PMP) is a planning tool that utilizes engineering software to assess and forecast pavement maintenance needs and assist in budgeting for street rehabilitation work. In essence, the PMP provides the qualitative information needed to assess the condition of all City streets so that staff can prioritize roadway repairs that maximize the preservation of this infrastructure most cost-effectively. For budget planning and capital project programming purposes, staff develops a phased paving project plan based on a rolling five-year Capital Improvement Program. It implements the plan through the Annual Street Resurfacing and Biennial Slurry Seal Programs.
The California Street and Highway Code Section 2108.1 mandates that every city receiving funding under the State Transportation Improvement Program develop a PMP to manage its local streets. Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) Proposition C Local Return Guidelines also require each City to assess its pavement condition every three years to remain eligible for funding. The City’s last update was conducted in 2021.
DISCUSSION:
Bucknam Infrastructure Group, Inc. (Bucknam) was selected in April 2024 to perform an update to the City’s PMP. Bucknam performed the following services per the scope of services of the City’s contract:
Task 1: Project Kickoff - Data Management
Task 2: Update of Maintenance Activities
Task 3: Pavement Condition Survey (approximately 106.2 miles)
Task 4: Budgetary Analysis and Capital Improvement Reports
Task 5: Executive Summary and Final CIP Reports
Task 6: Mapping of the Pavement Network
As part of the 2024 PMP Update, Bucknam conducted a thorough survey of the City’s entire vehicular street network, following the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) D6433 guidelines for assessing pavement condition. The most recent walking survey inspections were completed between April and August of 2024, and a report was submitted to the City in October 2024 for review and approval. The report includes a complete inventory of the pavement condition for every street in the City. Pedestrian walk streets were also included as part of this update.
The key pavement metric used is the Pavement Condition Index (PCI), which provides a snapshot of the pavement health of a road through a surface condition-based visual analysis algorithm. The PCI is a measurement of pavement grade or condition and ranges from 0 to 100, with 100 being the best. The PCI method is considered a best management practice and is widely used by many cities. The following condition categories are typically used within the PCI range:
0-40 Very Poor: full-depth reconstruction may be needed
41-59 Poor: mill and overlay with potential full-depth dig outs
60-74 Fair: mill and overlay or slurry seal
75-85 Good: preventive maintenance used (e.g., slurry seal)
86-100 Very Good: preventive maintenance used (e.g., slurry seal)
Pavement condition is primarily affected by climate, traffic loads and volumes, construction materials used, and age. A newly constructed street will have a PCI of 100, and streets with PCI at or above 75 are generally considered in “Good” or “Very Good” condition and show little surface distress. PCI scores of 60 to 74 are considered in “Fair” condition and show medium levels of distress, including longitudinal and transverse cracks, minor rutting and raveling with signs of weathering, and the pavement structure progressively becoming deficient. PCI scores of 41 to 59 are considered in “Poor” condition and include pavements exhibiting moderate to severe surface distress, including alligator cracking, rutting, and potholes. PCI scores of 0 to 40 are considered in “Very Poor” condition with pavement exhibiting severe distress as it nears the end of its service life.
PCI is a simple and effective communication tool. There are no standard PCI range or category conditions in the ASTM D6433 guidelines that dictate when work should be completed, which allows consultant engineers to modify these values using software tools to best reflect pavement conditions in their specific reports. Once a pavement segment in a network is programmed for work, small investments in better project-level site investigations during the design phase can have big payoffs by producing better information for engineering decisions and by identifying problems that will be costly to resolve when found during construction.
The citywide road network average weighted PCI is 73.3 and considered a “Fair” condition. This is a 3.3 PCI increase compared to the previous 2021 results. Broken up into roadway functional classifications, this equates to a PCI of 80.3 for Arterial/Collector roadways (one of the highest levels in the County) and 71.2 for Local streets. By comparison, the current Los Angeles County average PCI is 66. The attached Citywide PCI Report depicts the PCI rating for all streets in Manhattan Beach.
Over the next five years, the goal of the Public Works Department is to utilize the combined CIP budgets for the Annual Street Resurfacing and Biennial Slurry Seal Programs to not allow for a decrease in average PCI and to make all attempts to increase the average PCI to 78. This will be accomplished by balancing the need to address failing streets while ensuring sufficient funds are also allocated to preserving streets in the “Fair” or “Good” range. The overriding goal of the PMP is to prevent a decrease in street conditions and to not allow an increase in deferred maintenance costs over the five-year program.
Generally, within pavement management programs, a PCI range between 55 and 70 determines the threshold of when preventive or major overlay rehabilitation is initiated. The minimum level of service is identified as a PCI of 65 based on the City’s weighted average PCI, pavement condition distribution, and maintenance practices. This means, in most cases, that pavement sections with a PCI greater than 65 will typically be recommended for preventive maintenance (i.e. slurry seal).
Planning over a multi-year horizon for pavement projects is critical for budgeting both staff time and funding allocations. A multi-year funding roadmap allows flexibility such that new projects or street segments could be added as unforeseen year-to-year circumstances change, such as funding amounts, material costs, and accelerated pavement degradation. The City anticipates a total budget of $12.625 million for the Street Resurfacing Program in the upcoming Five-Year CIP. This amount includes yearly allocations from Streets and Highways, Proposition C, Measure R, and Measure M Funds and is broken down by fiscal years (FY) as follows:
FY 2024/2025 - $2.350 million
FY 2025/2026 - $3.150 million
FY 2026/2027 - $2.350 million
FY 2027/2028 - $2.650 million
FY 2028/2029 - $2.125 million
The City anticipates a total budget of $4.2 million for the Biennial Slurry Seal Program. This amount includes allocations from Gas Tax, CIP Fund, and Parking Fund for preventive maintenance work and is divided up as follows:
FY 2024/2025 - $1,000,000
FY 2026/2027 - $1,500,000
FY 2028/2029 - $1,700,000
At this funding level, the City’s average PCI is projected to increase to 78 by FY 2028/2029. Similarly, deferred maintenance will decrease from $15.9 million (present value cost) to $14.5 million by FY 2028/2029. Reaching the City’s goal of achieving an average PCI of 78 will require an average paving budget of approximately $3.36 million per year.
For the upcoming years, staff will propose to the City Council that street rehabilitation efforts continue to focus on 1) the streets depicted in the Poor and Very Poor conditions in the attached current PCI Condition map, and 2) the continuation of the Biennial Slurry Seal Program to help maintain higher PCI values.
On September 3, 2023, the City Council awarded Design Service Agreements to TAIT & Associates, Inc. and HR Green Pacific, Inc. for the designs of the Annual Street Resurfacing Program Cycle 3 Project and Biennial Slurry Seal Program in Area 6 (Tree Section), respectively. These projects will rehabilitate streets in the “Poor” or “Very Poor” range and maintain streets in the “Fair” or “Good” range. These planned improvements will help raise the City’s average PCI and upgrade a significant portion of streets in most need of maintenance or rehabilitation.
PUBLIC OUTREACH:
No public outreach was conducted in preparing the PMP Report. However, as the Street Resurfacing and Slurry Seal Projects are designed and constructed, the public is engaged through outreach notification and public meetings.
ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW:
The City has reviewed the proposed activity for compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and has determined that the activity is not a “Project” as defined under Section 15378 of the State CEQA Guidelines; therefore, pursuant to Section 15060(c)(3) of the State CEQA Guidelines the activity is not subject to CEQA. Thus, no environmental review is necessary.
LEGAL REVIEW:
No review is required for this report.
ATTACHMENTS:
1. 2024 Pavement Management Program Final Report
2. 2024 PCI Condition Map